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CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES
Families Moving Forward
The Families Moving Forward program provides intensive family reunification
services with clients and their family members at the Marin County Jail. Program
participants develop and complete family reunification service plans, attend
weekly parenting groups, access community resource and support systems and as a
result incarcerated parents and their familiesstabilize.
Leaders in Future Environments (LIFE) Project
The LIFE Project aims to break intergenerational cycles of crime by providing
ongoing support and positive role modeling for youth throughout the San
Francisco Bay Area who have or have had a parent incarcerated. LIFE provides
one-on-one mentoring, annual retreats, and monthly group activities.
San Quentin State Prison Visitor's Program
Families, friends and loved ones often travel hours to San Quentin for a visit
and need a place to rest, change clothes or have their children visit and then
spend some time with their loved one alone. Centerforce operates "The House on
the Hill" Visitor's Center outside the gates of San Quentin State Prison. The
visitor center provides a comfortable place to sit and unwind, a clothing
exchange, transportation and supervised activities for children during visiting
hours.
The Yellow House at San Quentin
Centerforce operates a second site immediately outside of the gates of San
Quentin called the "Yellow House". Projects that operate out of the "Yellow
House" include the First United Methodist Church's First Friday Lunch Program
and the San Quentin Families Project. The First Friday Lunch Program provides
lunches for families waiting to visit loved ones. The San Quentin Families
Project seeks to support family communication by providing letter writing kits
and postage to families and incarcerated fathers.
Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood
Project (HMRFP)
The HMRF program is offered within San Quentin's STAND-UP Program. The program's
goal is to strengthen marriages and relationships among incarcerated fathers
releasing from San Quentin State Prison. The project activities include marriage
and parenting classes with incarcerated fathers inside as well as classes for
visiting mothers and partners at Centerforce's Yellow House outside. Fathers who
successfully complete the marriage and parenting class, are releasing to the San
Francisco Bay Area within 3 months and who plan to reunify with their families,
are eligible for family reunification case management through HMRFP.
PRISONER SERVICES
Peer Education
The Peer Education Program currently operates at three institutions, San Quentin
State Prison, the Central California Women's Facility and Valley State Prison
for Women. Trained peer educators at these sites work to raise awareness,
provide education, and serve as a resource for fellow prisoners on a wide
variety of health issues such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis,tuberculosis, substance
abuse prevention, disability and child support. Prison peer educators facilitate
workshops, provide one-on-one outreach and support and coordinate prison-wide
special events. Through these activities, the peer educators reach and support
thousands of men and women each year with information and referrals.
Healthy Relationships
Healthy Relationships is a small-group intervention for men and women living
with HIV/AIDS. The intervention focuses on developing communication skills,
building self confidence, creating realistic expectations and making decisions
about participants' relationships. Centerforce is implementing Healthy
Relationships groups with prisoners at the California Medical Facility and
Central California Women's Facility.
Free to Succeed
The Free to Succeed program provides adult education, literacy and tutoring
groups to prisoners at San Quentin State Prison five nights per week. The
project focuses on basic literacy and supports students to communicate with
their families, work toward their GED and achieve other educational, personal
and professional goals.
No More Tears
No More Tears is an ongoing forum for prisoners and concerned community leaders
formed in response to violence and crime in communities including Richmond,
Oakland and beyond. No More Tears participants dialogue and seek understanding
of the obstacles, strategies, options and solutions for decreasing community
violence. The program also seeks to support thesuccessful return of prisoners to
the community as leaders in the violence prevention movement.
TRANSITIONAL SERVICES DIVISION
Healthy Outcomes Project
The Healthy Outcomes Project (HOP) is an HIV Risk reduction counseling program
that links clients to a wide range of community-based service programs,
including housing, food, employment, substance abuse treatment and medical care
services for men and women returning to the community from San Quentin State
Prison, Central California Women's Facility, and Valley State Prison for Women.
Transitional Case Management Program (TCMP)
Centerforce provides transitional case management for men and women living with
HIV returning to eight Bay Area counties. TCMP case managers work to firmly link
parolees living with HIV with medical care, long-term case management, parole
services and other community-based services such as substance abuse treatment,
housing, employment assistance. The goal of this transitional case management
program is for ex-prisoners living with HIV in California to live healthier
lives in the community.
Holla
Project Holla is a research collaborative between Centerforce and UCSF-CAPS. The
goal of the research is to explore the context of HIV risk behavior among men
who have sex with men who do not identify as gay leaving prison with an aim of
designing an intervention based on these men's experiences that will address the
unique HIV prevention needs of this population.
Structural Eco-systems Therapy (Get SET)
Get SET is a research collaborative between Centerforce and UCSF-CAPS. Through
this project, we are comparing the effectiveness of two counseling interventions
to reduce sexual and drug-related HIV transmission risk and increase HIV related
medical adherence. In this study, HIV+ men being released from prison will
either receive a family counseling intervention oran individually focused
counseling comparison intervention. Findings will be used to further inform best
practices to support individuals living with HIV to successfully transition back
into the community.
Positive Transitions (POST)
POST is a collaborative research project between Centerforce, UCSF-CAPS and UCSF-School
of Nursing. The research goal is to evaluate the effectiveness of two individual
level interventions to reduce HIV risk behavior and improve access to
post-release medical care and HIV prevention services for individuals living
with HIV leaving jail or prison settings. Findings will be used to further
inform best practices to support individuals living with HIV to successfully
change risk behaviors and improve access to medical and social support services
when transitioning back into the community.
INFORMATION & CAPACITY BUILDING SERVICES
Educational Materials
Brochures and Factsheets - Prison peer educators and other Centerforce staff
create and facilitate the development of a variety of educational brochures,
fact sheets, and videos created by and for inmates and their families to address
family and health-related topics and issues. Brochures and fact sheets include
Reuniting with Your Loved Ones, Connecting with Your Kids from Afar, Visiting a
Relative in Jail or Prison, Hepatitis C & HIV, Working with Community Services
and more.
Videos - "Inside/Out" is a 17-minute video with
its accompanying comprehensive discussion guide explores the challenges faced by
women after their partners are released from prison. "Inside/Out" focuses on the
health risks in prison and highlights the need for honest communication around
health issues when planning for the future. "What Does He Do in There?" is an
18-minute video, originally designed for younger children, tracks a day in the
life of a prisoner in San Quentin State Prison in order to answer the typical
questions posed by visiting children. The viewer takes a "virtual" tour of the
prison, and visits various sites with inmate comments along the way. Since the
release of the video, significant interest has been generated in the "adult"
community. The video is now widely used by probation officers, teachers, and
with adult audiences in general discussions of prisons and prison life. It
remains a useful tool for all visiting programs.
Annual Inside/Out Summit
Since 2000, the Centerforce Annual Inside/Out Summit has served as a forum
for national discourse on best practices to support incarcerated populations and
their families. The Summit's dynamic keynote, plenary sessions, workshops, and
roundtables provide an unparalleled opportunity for populations affected by
incarceration to collectively seek positive solutions. This truly unique event
gives individuals a chance to discover,network and thrive with social support
services and community based organization personnel, ex-prisoners, public health
& healthcare professionals, prison reform advocates, government officials and
corrections personnel from around the country.
Replication of Effective Programs - Project
START
Project START (START) was a multi-site HIV/STI/hepatitis prevention
intervention trial that Centerforce participated in which provided evidence that
a comprehensive re-entry intervention based on case-management can reduce sexual
risk behavior among young men leaving state prison compared to a standard risk
reduction intervention. Centerforce is the lead agency in a consortium to
develop a standardized dissemination package and technical assistance guidance
for the START intervention that will be nationally distributed.
Training and Consultation
Experienced Centerforce staff members are available to provide training and
consultation services to community based agencies, organizations, academic
institutions, and government agencies on issues and topics such as working
effectively with the prison community, program development and evaluation, and
policy analysis.
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